If You Really Want to Defy Conformity, Dress Up on Fridays

To be hip at Silicon Valley startups these days, one must leave the flip-flops and hoodies at home and dress up on Fridays. WSJ's Andy Jordan reports from San Francisco on the "anti-Casual Friday" that's come to be known as "Formal Friday"

By

Andy Jordan

Jan. 3, 2013 10:31 p.m. ET

SAN FRANCISCO—The trappings of a nonconformist workplace were on display recently at the headquarters of a startup here named Pulse: There was the foosball table, the containers of free M&Ms, the bottle of whiskey on top of the fridge.

And the guys standing around in suits and ties.

It was Friday, after all, and to truly defy conformity at some tech outfits on that day of the week, one must not wear jeans or flip-flops.

Many American companies have come around to practicing Casual Friday, encouraging employees to dress down after four days of business wear. Silicon Valley was a pioneer of that basse couture, often opting for casual every day.

But Casual Friday just won't do any more for some hip companies here and in other trendy cities—now that everybody's doing it.

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Employees of The Barbarian Group on a Formal Friday. Kevin Chan, in green shorts, the senior art director who spearheaded the agency's Formal Fridays, says the company loves to 'challenge and subvert.'
The Barbarian Group

At some tech startups, Formal Fridays stem from employees' desire to free themselves from the hoodies and jeans that are standard weekday dress.

It helps to be able to shock their East Coast counterparts. The instigator for Formal Fridays at Pulse, Albert Lai, says East Coast clients visiting the San Francisco office on a Friday are surprised. "They kind of assumed all Californians just wore Hawaiian shirts all day," he says, wearing a bow tie he says it took an hour to tie.

For some Silicon Valley companies, like gaming giant Zynga Inc., there are informal Formal Friday traditions, where small groups of employees dress up on occasional Fridays.

Even Facebook, whose chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, took the hoodie and T-shirt uniform to new heights, has a design team that often dresses up for what has come to be known as "Corporate Friday," a team tradition that dates back to as early as 2005.

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Albert Lai

"There may be a drop of irony to it as the prevailing dress code at Facebook is casual, but more than that I think it's a nod to the culture of transcending corporate politics," says Skip Bronkie, a designer on the team.

"Sometimes," he says, "you just want to bring the heat for no particular reason at all, and Corporate Friday is your opportunity to suit up."

It is difficult to pinpoint when the tradition got started, but one early proponent was the Barbarian Group, a New York digital marketing and creative agency. It started at Barbarian's Boston office as a 2004 cocktail-fueled joke that led to email invites with images of Ken and Barbie dolls dressed in formal duds.

The invitations motivated staffers to get dolled up each Friday. Kevin Chan, the senior art director who spearheaded Barbarian's Formal Fridays on both coasts, says the company has "always loved to challenge and subvert—to do things a little differently."

He also says the work attire for "Barbarians" is otherwise pretty casual (he is known for his tank tops), so Formal Friday, now a regular occurrence, "gives Barbarians a good excuse to get formal one day of the week."

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Thom Woodley, an employee of The Barbarian Group, on a Formal Friday.
The Barbarian Group

A Peet's Coffee shop in San Francisco's Financial District has about five employees who initiated an informal Formal Friday routine about a year ago, according to one of the baristas, Bob Reginelli, who wore a hand-tied bow tie and a top hat on a recent Friday. The outfit, combined with his scraggly beard, caused him to resemble a modern-day Abraham Lincoln. "Someone actually told me to stay honest, in the elevator," he says.

"Friday's the best day of the week anyway, right? Why not celebrate it with some style and grace," says Kyle Serpa, another employee there, dressed on a recent Friday in suspenders and a tie.

One style maven is happy to see hipsters stepping up their sartorial game. "These people are not in college anymore. They need to look like adults," says Lydia Ramsey, a Savannah, Ga., business-etiquette expert and author of the book, "Manners That Sell."

Ms. Ramsey blames MicrosoftMSFT-0.38% for cementing the casual dress culture so common in the tech sector, but says startups today have "taken it to a new low."

"Looking back at photos of Bill [Gates] and Steve Jobs in the early days, it's hard to see how Microsoft would be the instigator of casual clothes," says Frank Shaw, Microsoft corporate vice president, corporate communications. "But if we are held up as the founders of casual dress workplaces, then of course we are happy to accept the joyful accolades of those freed from the shackles of ties and other uncomfortable work attire."

Ms. Ramsey says she is excited to see more companies putting the A-game back in their dress and believes employees are more productive when they dress in formal attire.

Ravi Mikkelsen, chief executive of San Francisco startup jobFig, a software company that predicts job candidates' compatibility with a particular team, tends to agree. When employees of his company dress up on some Fridays, "I feel like a banker…and I want to produce."

For jobFig, instituting even a semiregular Formal Friday was a way to introduce some cohesiveness in a company with no formal office, he says.

The three full-time people on the payroll work from home in pajamas on some days, they say, so the occasional Formal Friday at one employee's house was designed to bring the team together in a more formal atmosphere.

Co-founder Dillon Compton says the Friday formality "helps me keep sort of serious and focused sometimes." Florian Maurer, jobFig's programmer says there is also an added benefit: It helps ensure "that I do my laundry before Thursday," he says.

As for the reaction they get when they encounter people in the Valley when they venture out on Fridays? "They think we're tourists, mostly" Mr. Mikkelsen says.

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